Baking & Snack - June 2008 - 42

45
4
5
coffee cake in an effort to please the
masses. We've taken a different approach, pushing the premium, authentic angle and have done very well."
Boston Coffee Cake now has market exposure in both convenience and
drug store chains. "We came up with
displays and are working out logistics
of DSD versus frozen distribution," Mr.
Forman said. "And because these stores
don't have bakeries, we are positioned
in the commercial aisles, which in turn
has helped us transition to the commercial aisles of supermarkets. So the whole
business is constantly evolving and really getting broad exposure."
Product development is done inhouse. Although the company has introduced new products and flavors, it stays
close to the basics. "Commodity prices
prevent us from taking too many risks
in terms of new product failure. Mini
(6-oz) cakes have really taken off, and
we can do many variations on the theme
with limited risk," Mr. Forman said. "We
also customize cakes for restaurants or
provide regular coffee cakes to a supermarket that might then allow customers
to decorate their own cake with a choice
of toppings. And co-branding is an excellent reinforcement for sales to hesitant buyers. Our mini cakes are at the
same price point but ours are a larger,
more elegant looking product.
"We do things differently than others,"
he continued. "The centers of the Bundtshaped cakes are filled after baking giving us total freedom to experiment. We

offer cookies
es and cream, marshmallow,
chocolate raspberry,
aspberry chocolate ganache;
anything the customer wants. We develop our own fillings to complement the
cakes and storage issues."
CAKE WALK. The 100-year-old,
40,000-sq-ft former shoe factory houses one production line running one to
two shifts five days a week. A third-shift
sanitation crew prepares the plant for
the next day. The company employs 40
full- and part-time associates.
The bakery is made up of three floors,
and production combines manual and
automated processes. Mixing, depositing and baking are performed on the
third floor. The plant uses a series of Hobart 140-qt mixers to produce the coffee
and pound cake batters. Because of the
building configuration, all raw materials
are delivered in bags and hand-scaled
and loaded into the mixers.
After blending, batter is pumped to
an All-Fill depositor. Individual Bundt
pans or 4-strap loaf pans with fluted liners are filled and conveyed to the C.H.
Babb oven. Marbled cakes pass under
a second filler after which the batters
are stirred to achieve the marbled look.
"We produce 1.5- and 3-lb coffee cakes,
traditional loaf-shape pound cake and
half-sheet cakes," Mr. Forman said. "We
recently introduced sugar-free and nosugar-added varieties as well."

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ᮢ Fully baked coffee cakes are conveyed adjacent
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For more information, see Page 121

Baking & Snack - June 2008

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